


Enough to Go By

by Sora G Silverwind (cinnamonical)



Series: Hazeverse [1]
Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Consensual Possession, Drama, Experimental Concept, F/M, Ghosts, M/M, Matchmaking, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1200511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamonical/pseuds/Sora%20G%20Silverwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being dead isn't going to stop Tomoe from making sure her husband is happy in her absence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gonna set your hope on fire

**Author's Note:**

> **[Originally posted at FFN on August 15, 2011.]**
> 
> Another anonmeme fill, this one requesting that Tomoe possess Barnaby's body at some point to get close to Kotetsu again. Iiiii got a little too creative with Tomoe's ghost world of the Haze, which is partially based on the concept of the Grey from Kat Richardson's Greywalker series.
> 
> The title of the fic, along with a quoted lyric later on and the chapter titles, all come from various Vienna Teng songs.
> 
> Review if you will, flame if you must.
> 
> -Sora G. Silverwind  
>  _my love, I won't allow you to kill yourself this way_

_Would it be enough to go by if we could sail on the wind in the dark?_   
_Cut those chains in the middle of the night that had you pulled apart?_   
_Would it be enough to go by if there's moonlight pulling the tide?_   
_Would it be enough to live on if my love could keep you alive?_

-Vienna Teng, "Enough to Go By"

***

As usual, Tomoe found Kotetsu at his apartment in downtown Sternbild. Unusually, he actually had someone over: a man she thought she recognized as Fire Emblem, a.k.a. Nathan Seymour, from HeroTV.

Fire Emblem had joined the crew three years after Kotetsu had. Her clearest memory of the flamboyant hero was at a party where, upon returning with some drinks from the bar, she was treated to the sight of him gleefully groping her husband's ass. To Kotetsu's credit, he'd remained rather composed about the situation, if a little red in the face.

"You totally liked it," she'd accused him later, grinning. "Come on, no need to hide it from me. I know what's up." She nudged him. "I approve of him, you know. Even if, or maybe because, he's prettier than I am."

Kotetsu simpered. "It's not like that!" he insisted, waving it off. "Nathan's that way with nearly everyone. You get used to it after a while." He hugged her close suddenly and kissed her cheek. "Besides, no one's prettier than you in my eyes and you can't convince me otherwise."

Seeing the two of them curled up on the couch together watching an explosion-laden movie, with Kotetsu resting his head against the side of Nathan's neck and Nathan snaking an arm around Kotetsu's waist, Tomoe wondered just _how_ used to it he'd gotten over the years. Or if Kotetsu had just somehow managed to wrangle himself a Gay Best Friend after she'd died, since she didn't recall them being this close before.

The latter seemed more likely, Tomoe decided as she drifted closer to Kotetsu and Nathan and "tasted" their relationship from the aura that surrounded the two: drawing a breath through partly open lips, the tip of her tongue pressed against the back of her top teeth. Such corporeality was out of place in someone who was just a spirit in the Haze, but it was the only frame of reference she had for what she was doing. Besides, who was going to call her out on it in the realm of the dead?

As the energy settled into her tongue, the taste of fresh rye bread bloomed in her mouth, soft and savory, with a touch of tomatoes, ham, and — unsurprisingly, in this situation — mayonnaise. Tomoe had learned over time that friendships had a taste associated with bread: sliced bread from the grocery store for casual acquaintances, and crusty fresh bread for closer friends. The aura between really good friends typically tasted like some sort of sandwich, usually (but not always) incorporating the individual tastes from other people involved in the friendship. Lacking from this particular aura, however, was the signature cinnamon sweetness associated with romantic love, which colored flavors without muddying them.

Tomoe breathed in again, paying a little more attention this time. Nothing cinnamon-like on Kotetsu's side of things, but there was a hint of it somewhere in Nathan's aura, barely noticeable. He _had_ been seriously interested in Kotetsu at some point, apparently, but the feelings had since melted into the tomato-ham-and-mayonnaise-on-rye taste of deep friendship. 

Satisfied with her findings for the moment, she settled into the empty space next to Kotetsu on the couch and turned her attention to the movie. If she tried hard enough, she could almost believe that it was the three of them enjoying a planned movie night together, instead of two friends and an interloping ghost who was too stubborn — or scared — to let go of life.

"Cripes, Nathan, but this movie is shit," Kotetsu complained, knocking his head slightly against Nathan's collarbone. "The main character's a dumbass, the plot is stupid, and the special effects aren't even that good. How was this the number-one movie at the box office for the past two months?"

"I was hoping to figure that out by watching it myself," Nathan responded. He ran a soothing hand through Kotetsu's dark hair. "So far, I'm just as perplexed as you are, darling."

Kotetsu grumbled, and with it Tomoe caught a whiff of sandalwood smoke.

Smell was the other sense that was strangely transformed by her passing from the living realm into the Haze. Tomoe could discern more of the texture of smells and how many there were, and all of it would point to the emotional state of the person or people it was emanating from. Exasperation or annoyance smelled like smoke, but the quality and intensity of it depended on a number of factors. In Kotetsu's case, he was obviously miffed by the movie, but the resulting smoke smell wasn't very strong, so it wasn't vexing him _that_ much. The overall scent of the scene was fragrant and earthy, an indication of relaxation. It was a welcome change from the sterile, rubbing alcohol stench of loneliness that usually pervaded Kotetsu's apartment.

"Oh, I know what it is," Kotetsu muttered darkly. "I bet this movie is super-popular because the lead actor kind of looks like Bunny."

 _"Bunny"?_ The interesting name was accompanied by an equally interesting mix of scents. Tomoe detected the acrid bite of coalsmoke, which meant that Kotetsu harbored some significant irritation towards whoever this Bunny was. It made an odd complement to the onion stink of jealousy, secondary to the smoke smell but still distinctly present. Both, however, were threaded through with something softer that she couldn't quite discern. And she couldn't taste their relationship, either, since Bunny wasn't in the room with Kotetsu and Nathan. But given Kotetsu's lack of a social life, it seemed likely that Bunny was a new face at HeroTV.

"He does not," Nathan insisted. "The only thing the two have in common is that they're attractive men with blond hair and green eyes."

"And glasses."

"He's only wearing glasses for this role."

"Whatever. Don't you think he still looks like Bunny?"

"Darling, their facial structures are completely different."

Kotetsu pouted. "Fine, fine. I'll trust your judgment."

Nathan giggled and gently poked Kotetsu in the side with a graceful finger. "I think our little tiger has a certain _somebody_ on his mind," he teased, making a kissy face.

"Don't even _joke_ about that!" Kotetsu looked (and smelled) horrified. "Bunny's been pissing me off from day one — you can't blame me for being annoyed at any reminder of him on my off-time!"

And then Tomoe finally identified the other smell associated with the name.

 _Cinnamon._

Whether scent or taste, it only ever indicated one thing.

Well, now. This _was_ interesting.

"If you say so," Nathan drawled. "But I still maintain that Alexander Steele looks nothing like Handsome."

Tomoe glanced back at the movie, where the main character was currently having some sort of heart-to-heart conversation with the blandly beautiful female lead. Alexander Steele was young and scruffily handsome in a way that could set him up for characters that were either tough guy heroes (as he was in this movie) or charmingly awkward underdog love interests. He...didn't look like the type of person who would have the name "Bunny" attached to him. Tomoe hoped to God that that was just a nickname on Kotetsu's part, because otherwise she felt like she was going to have to throw all her sympathy behind a guy who was unfortunate enough to be named that by his parents. Actually, scratch that: Bunny already had some of her sympathy for being named such by her husband. She wondered if he knew about it.

She stuck around for a few more minutes, hoping to find out more about this Bunny person that had snared Kotetsu's attention (negatively or not) in the time since she'd visited him last. But he and Nathan had fallen mostly silent, now riveted by the explosions that had interrupted Steele's tender moment with his love interest. And she was beginning to see the specters of past moments in the apartment, with different people and different furnishings and different situations all mingling together messily, which meant that she was falling back through the layers of the Haze and losing her grip on the present. She could never actually fully manifest in the Clear (as she referred to the present time), but she could get close enough that it strained her connection with the energies of the Haze, which were — as far she could tell — rather important in keeping her consciousness glued together. She had seen many spirits in her time become frayed and burned from hovering near the Clear for too long, obsessed with trying to regain what they had lost. If she were going to cling to the remnants of her old life, she was going to at least be smart about it.

Swearing to eventually figure out who Bunny was, Tomoe faded into the deeper layers of the Haze to recover.


	2. strange how we fit each other

The problem with being in the Haze, aside from the fact that it meant that one was _dead_ , was that time passed differently between there and the Clear. Something that felt like a day in the Haze could be two weeks in the Clear, or vice versa. The ratio usually (but not always — the realm could be capricious) depended on how deep you were in the Haze, with something closer to 1:1 occurring in the layers bordering the Clear.

This temporal element extended to the terrain of the Haze as well, which seemed like an accumulation of the combined memories of Sternbild itself piled on top of each other. And much like memories, the details could be hazy, hence Tomoe's name for the place. The further she descended through the layers of time, the blurrier and more tea-stained things got. Even the layers closest to the present dulled the brilliant colors of life with a sad sort of sepia. It was like living (well, existing) inside a badly-deteriorated vintage photograph, only not as nostalgic because there were some seriously creepy things wandering around...and that was just counting the things that might have been human at some point in their existence.

It wasn't all bad here, though. Aside from having acquired the baffling ability to smell emotions and taste relationships, Tomoe could easily warp through the Haze to wherever Kotetsu was, with merely the thought and the will to do it. But this was only because the two of them shared such a powerful emotional connection. He was the sole constant for her, the lighthouse that guided her to a home unfettered by the walls of any earthly location. The only other person she could reliably track down this way was her precious daughter Kaede.

When Tomoe next found her husband, he seemed to be in the middle of an episode of HeroTV, facing off against a portly fellow who sported a jetpack on his back and some sort of crystalline substance on his skin. And at some point between the last time she'd seen him in action (which was who knew how long ago; she hadn't been able to look up a chronological touchstone at the time), he'd ditched his old costume for an impressive mechanical suit in green, white, and black, with a helmet that covered his face completely. The only reason she recognized him was because there was no way she'd ever forget the distinctive imprint of his spirit on the Haze, something that had no tangible interpretation like emotions or relationships did. But she was glad for the change: she'd secretly thought his previous costume looked pretty ugly, not that the poor man had had any input into its design. At least it had defined the contours of his body quite nicely and inspired many a late-night fantasy as a result.

Accompanying Kotetsu was someone Tomoe didn't recognize at all. He was about the same height, and wore a similar suit except in shades of red and pink(?!). Surrounding the two was the pine fragrance of focus and adrenaline, though the red one had wisps of smoky annoyance lingering around him; something had probably happened earlier to vex him, but he'd set it aside for the moment. The relationship between them tasted like soup (a rather salty cream of mushroom, if she had to guess), so that meant they were professionally connected. But she'd already deduced that earlier. What she was _really_ interested in was —

_There._

The taste of cinnamon, very faint but unmistakably present.

In _both_ of their auras.

 _So this must be the guy that's got Kotetsu all hot and bothered,_ Tomoe thought, intrigued. _A new co-worker, as I thought._ She had to admit that the suit... _did_ kind of make him look like a bunny. Sort of. If she were seeing it in a funhouse mirror while drunk. It was mostly the extensions on top of his helmet that bore the resemblance. _Is Bunny his superhero name? That's not exactly the most threatening moniker in the world. Unless he also happens to be a vampire bunny._

"So, your powers are about to run out, huh?" the criminal sneered. "Then I'll play around with you guys one last time!"

Kotetsu drew back a fist. "Thanks for the offer!" He rushed forward with the speed granted to him by his NEXT power and drove his fist into the criminal's stomach with a growl.

_WHAM!_

Tomoe blinked. The punch hadn't done anything to that man!

"Geez, you're tougher than I thought," Kotetsu stuttered. He pulled back just in time for Bunny to come barreling in with a kick to the criminal's jeweled jaw, an attack that proved equally ineffective at hindering him in any way.

The rose scent of smugness was positively malodorous radiating from this particular man. "No one can defeat me!" he declared, throwing his arms out with a triumphant laugh.

Tomoe watched anxiously as the two Heroes tried their best to break through the man's hardened skin with rapid-fire punches and kicks. The criminal didn't actually seem all that dangerous, as far as she could smell, but all that boasting he was doing was pretty irritating, and that was enough reason for her to want Kotetsu and his partner to take him down a notch by arresting him. Well, _more_ of a reason.

Either way, she had to admit that she was really enjoying being on the scene while Kotetsu was working. Sure, he was risking life and limb doing so, and that always worried her, how could it _not_ , but being on the job seemed to infuse an extra burst of spirit into his already sanguine demeanor. Even filtered through a team of producers and the TV screen, it was plain as day that there was a vigor to Kotetsu the Hero that wasn't found in quite the same way anywhere else, and she had always been curious to see just how much more intense the difference was in person. For obvious reasons, she'd never been able to do that while she was still alive. _Another strange perk of being dead_ , she thought.

 _"Five seconds remaining,"_ a feminine computer voice suddenly intoned from...the suits? _"Four...three..."_

 _"Good Luck Mode!"_ came a more masculine digitized voice.

_CL-CLANK! SHTUNK! CLANG!_

The armor on Kotetsu's right arm and Bunny's right leg swiftly unfolded and reformed into what looked like weapons of impending destruction. The two of them shone brightly with power.

_"Three...two...one..."_

Tomoe held a breath she never had in the first place.

Kotetsu and Bunny let out a yell as they went in for one final hit on the criminal.

_WHAAAMMM!!_

"Tiger and Bunny, over and out!" the male voice announced.

And after a moment's pause...the criminal's crystalline skin shattered, revealing the pathetic figure of a pudgy young man who then collapsed to the ground. _CR-AAACK! WHUMP!_

Kotetsu exhaled. "We did it..."

Tomoe smiled and clapped.

 _"Good job, you two!"_ crackled another voice over the intercom, and Tomoe winced upon hearing it. Unlike the first two voices, this one was definitely human, albeit so obnoxiously brash that she probably could've heard the man ten miles away. Maybe it was a NEXT power?

"This new feature you installed is amazing," Bunny said, studying his enhanced leg. "It really boosts our offensive power!"

_"Nope! Your power doesn't change at all!"_

"Huh?"

_"It just makes you look cooler in battle."_

_Of course it does,_ Tomoe thought with a dry fondness. _This is HeroTV we're talking about. Cool is the rule with them._

"What?" Kotetsu sputtered, raising the faceplate of his helmet in consternation. "That's _it?"_

Bunny also lifted his faceplate...

And Tomoe suddenly found herself looking at the most beautiful man she'd ever laid eyes on.

Oh, make no mistake — Kotetsu was pretty, in a dorky, endearing sort of way. Certainly he'd been the prettiest delinquent she'd ever seen in her life outside of shoujo manga (and some yaoi titles). 

But Bunny...Bunny was like if Apollo himself had descended from Mount Olympus to fight crime. Delicate features, golden hair, eyes like deep jade, a voice like velvet...the man could make a rock question its own sexuality, never mind a mere mortal like Kotetsu. Though Kotetsu himself didn't seem to be aware of his attraction to the other man.

(Truth be told, neither of them appeared to have gotten the memo on the fact that they actually liked each other, even a little. How long had they been working together for?)

Tomoe was distantly aware of the obnoxious intercom voice nattering on about teamwork and how the two Heroes had been completely in sync, but she was still trying to process this new piece of...information. Bunny was much younger than she'd expected — he had to be at least ten years Kotetsu's junior. Not that that stopped Tomoe from appreciating him, since she was fairly sure he was at least legal. Goodness, if she were still alive, she'd be asking Kotetsu if they could take the pretty bunny home. To their bedroom.

In the chaos of Kotetsu and Bunny denying that they were doing anything remotely like "working together", the criminal managed to pick himself up and started to away from the scene as quietly as possible. No luck: Kotetsu swiftly seized him by the back of his shirt and dangled the hapless man in the air. He paused for a moment before glancing over his shoulder at Bunny.

"You can have this one," he said.

"Huh?"

Kotetsu brandished the criminal at him. "This is your birthday present!"

Bunny looked affronted. "Excuse me? I wasn't actually serious about the necklace, you know. I don't really want something like that, and even if I did, I couldn't accept it."

"Not _that!_ I'm letting you arrest him!" A grin. "It's points you want, isn't it? So here you go. Happy birthday, Bunny."

That...was actually one of the most thoughtful and appropriate presents Tomoe had ever seen from anyone. She was impressed. And maybe also a little amused. Okay, _definitely_ amused. _Did he forget to get something else for Bunny for his birthday? Lord knows he'd forgotten mine often enough._

Bunny frowned. "There's nothing 'happy' about it," he grumbled, walking over to Kotetsu. "I told you that I'm sick of your meddling!" The acid in his tone was somewhat dulled by the fact that his Good Luck Leg was still active, forcing him to adopt a rather awkward step-and-drag shuffle instead of the confident, haughty stroll he probably wanted. "'Happy birthday'? How embarrassing." He snatched the criminal from Kotetsu's hand and waddled past him to hand the man off to Sternbild police.

"...hey, why are you smiling?" came the criminal's sudden inquiry.

"I'm not smiling," Bunny stated flatly.

 _Liar._ She could smell his happiness in the air, the emotion manifesting as a refreshing orange tang. Curiously enough, the orange was slightly imbued with a touch of minty confusion, as though Bunny were startled by the sudden presence of joy within him.

Tomoe gave Kotetsu a ghostly kiss before heading over to Bunny, intending to track him back to his home so she could potentially find him in the future if she needed or wanted to. The man had been the catalyst for the most entertaining Kotetsu visit she'd had since landing in the Haze, and she wanted to see what kind of person he was like on his own. Would he be good for Kotetsu? Would Kotetsu be good for him? Mutual attraction didn't necessarily mean they'd be compatible. She hoped they would be, because Kotetsu was long overdue for a new relationship, but a little investigation into the matter couldn't hurt. Not that she'd really be able to act on her findings, limited as she was as a spirit.

(She most definitely had no interest in sneaking a peek at Bunny in the shower while she was at it. Not at all. Why would she _ever_ abuse her spectral status in such an indelicate way?)


	3. the quiet of night that breaks me

The maelstrom of emotional scents inside Bunny's apartment was so strong it practically made her illusory eyes water.

First Tomoe smelled the loneliness, which she was more than familiar with from Kotetsu's place. But at least Kotetsu's place looked lived in. Bunny's apartment was just as bare and bleak as it smelled — there was practically no personalization whatsoever except for a recliner in the center of the room and a small desk, which Bunny made a beeline for after taking off his jacket and boots. There was also a giant picture of a hibiscus on the wall behind the recliner, but she didn't think that was there by Bunny's choice; it seemed more like the interior decorating version of the default desktop wallpaper one got with a brand new computer. Tomoe wondered if he had just moved in and that was why the place was unfurnished, but there should at least be a couple of moving boxes lying around if that were the case.

More troubling to her than the loneliness was the rotten-egg reek of rage, wreathed in coalsmoke frustration, that alternately fought and embraced the clean stench of rubbing alcohol. Tomoe wanted to attribute that to the former occupants of the apartment, but as she quickly flipped back through the temporal layers of the Haze (gaining a much needed energy boost in the process, small though it was), she learned that Bunny was the apartment's first — and only — occupant.

 _Where did all of that emotion come from?_ Tomoe wanted to know. His feelings of isolation made sense, given that he was a young man living on his own, but rage? She'd scented it around Kotetsu in some of his darker days after her death, but never had it lingered this long or been this strong. Why did a seemingly well-adjusted, successful young man like Bunny have such an infernal monster caged in his heart?

She meandered over to him as he leaned back in his chair and clicked a small remote, bringing up a swarm of digital screens in the darkness of his apartment: various newspaper articles, personal profiles, digital notes and diary entries. She suddenly caught wind of a bottom note of grief: salty ocean breezes almost drowned out by sulfuric ire. The smell was primarily centered on a nearby picture frame and a little robot toy beside it, which would explain why she'd missed it earlier. A closer look at the picture revealed a young boy who had to be Bunny as a child, accompanying a seated woman in a pink dress sharing his blond hair and green eyes — undoubtedly his mother. Standing behind Bunny was a tree trunk of a man with dark eyes and hair, wearing a suit.

Tomoe glanced back up at the screens hovering in the air, and she caught sight of a newspaper article dating back about twenty years, featuring the portraits of the man and the woman in the picture frame. She could only make out parts of it, covered as it was by other screens, but she saw all that she needed to know.

_'Corpses found in fire-devastated house remains identified as those of husband and wife, famed robot engineers'_

The wife's name was obscured by what looked like a profile on a criminal, but Tomoe saw the man's name: Barnaby Brooks. Which she'd already surmised, having seen Bunny's real name, Barnaby Brooks Jr., plastered on a billboard advertisement while she was hitching a ride home with him on his motorcycle. It was such a quaint, old-fashioned name that was out of step with a hip young star like him, yet it was precisely his star status that made it cool again, or at least not quite as cringeworthy. Still, she started to understand why Kotetsu just called him "Bunny" all the time. The nickname was only a smidgen more embarrassing than "Barnaby."

_Though...if Bunny's a Jr., shouldn't there be a "Sr." after his dad's name?_

Tomoe shook her head, wondering why that thought had just occurred to her, and instead let her gaze wander over the other screens for the next few minutes, taking in what she could as Bunny shifted through old documents and brought up new ones. The three significant things that she managed to infer were that his parents' deaths were connected to something called Ouroboros, and that no one seemed to have any clue exactly what Ouroboros was...

And that Bunny was going to find out, come hell or high water.

The glamour of earlier faded away, no longer blinding Tomoe to the truth before her. 

Beneath the charm and the confidence...Bunny was a son devastated by the death of his parents.

Even after twenty years.

Tomoe felt bad for him, but she frowned. Had no one told him to move on? She didn't mean the thought unkindly; it was just that the intensity of the emotions surrounding him made her wonder if he'd ever gotten past the second stage of grieving. She'd smelled similar feelings around people who had lost a loved one six months to a year past, but not after two _decades_. Who had taken him in after his parents died? How had they not discouraged this sort of obsession? Had they not noticed because Bunny hid his demons so well? Certainly Tomoe wouldn't have guessed any of this if she hadn't stalked him back here. How much longer could Bunny keep up the act? Did Kotetsu know about this? What did he think if he did?

A prickle rippled through her then, disrupting her train of thought.

Something else was in the Haze with her.

She looked around and spotted two shadowy silhouettes, one tall and broad, the other slender and petite, standing by the massive floor-length window looking out onto the Sternbild skyline. it was nearly impossible to make out details, framed as they were by the night sky. They had the look of spirits who had been dead for longer than her, patchy and distorted.

 _Bunny's parents?_ she wondered. They certainly shared similar builds. Still checking up on their child after all this time, were they? She couldn't blame them, knowing what she did now about the shadows contained behind his golden mask.

The spirits flashed in and out of visibility as they drifted towards her, as though they were trying to teleport the distance between them but couldn't control their trajectory. Tomoe took a few steps back, holding up her hands in a show of peace. "I don't mean any harm to...your son," she said, not sure what name to use to refer to him as. She wasn't sure how they'd react to the nickname she'd adopted from Kotetsu. "I'm the wife of a new friend" — _friend? Sure, that works_ — "of his. I'm just finding out what kind of person your son is." She smiled, trying to project amiable, conciliatory vibes as best as she could. "Maybe my husband can take care of him so you don't have to worry about him as much."

They continued to bear upon her. Tomoe was suddenly frightened that she'd misjudged who they were. It could be dicey communicating with other spirits in the Haze, and she didn't have the benefit of being able to smell their feelings or taste their relationships like she could with those who were still alive. Sometimes it was just a matter of missing the other spirits as a result of being on different temporal layers, but other times it had to do with the nature of the spirits themselves: how long they'd been in the Haze for, the circumstances of their death and how they were dealing with it, and any number of things that Tomoe couldn't begin to account for. And what she couldn't account for, she couldn't plan for, and consequently couldn't defend against. The standard Kotetsu approach of just punching things, literally or more metaphorically, wasn't going to solve this sort of problem either.

But they ended up ignoring her completely, popping into position behind Bunny as he worked, one on either side of him like a pair of bodyguards. They each laid a hand on his shoulders, and some of the tension began to melt away from Bunny's body, as though they had drained some of the darkness that burdened him into their own souls. With a sigh, Bunny lay back in his chair, legs slightly crossed and his hands resting on his stomach. It was a new family portrait, crossing the boundaries between the dead and the living, with no record save for that of Tomoe's own memories.

Tomoe decided that this was probably a good time to fade back. She _had_ expended a lot of energy being out this long, not to mention exerting enough will to latch onto Bunny's spirit so she could easily follow him here. She was so drained that she suspected she was going to have to traverse the Haze as far back as the days of horses and carriages to really regain her strength. It would be a lot more efficient to restore herself that way, but who knew when she'd end up visiting Kotetsu or Bunny again. She hoped she could at least catch the next big development in their relationship, if there was one.

She still wasn't sure whether the two were a good fit for each other. Of course she knew Kotetsu all too well, but she barely had threads of Bunny's life. Tomoe couldn't begin to weave a picture of him together with Kotetsu using just those scraps. And maybe it was even too early in their interaction for her to be thinking about playing matchmaker for her husband with this man.

Then again, it wasn't like she had anything better to do with her time.


	4. destination: not you, my one

In the days (or however long it was) following her first encounter with Bunny, Tomoe did the perhaps unwise thing of visiting the Clear every time she felt remotely stable enough to do so, pushing back her full recovery bit by bit in favor of keeping up with life, which had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting. She cycled between checking up on Kotetsu, Bunny, and Kaede, managing each time to only get a few minutes' glimpse of their lives before having to retreat. Kaede, she was relieved to see, was more or less fine. Certainly there were negative emotions swirling around her, such as aggravation with homework (which smelled like barbecue coming from her for some reason) and asphalt resentment towards her father, and even a bit of loneliness, but all of those feelings were gently cushioned in grassy contentment and overall stability. Mama Kaburagi was taking good care of her little girl.

(Tomoe also didn't fail to notice the posters, pictures, and other paraphernalia of a certain blond Hero all over Kaede's room. Was attraction to that man a genetic trait in the Kaburagi family or something?)

As for the two men in her not-life, she usually found them in the middle of various work-related things, such as but not limited to office duties, saving civilians, eating lunch, arresting crooks, conversing with colleagues, and doing photoshoots. Well, okay, that last one was mostly Bunny: Kotetsu had been abandoned at a table in a darkened corner of the photo studio, looking entirely put-out and smelling like car exhaust as a result. Tomoe couldn't help but giggle at the sulky expression on his face before coming over to join him. Then she had to giggle again when Kotetsu took Bunny's phone (it was red, who else's could it be in this situation?) and started playing around with the camera on it, taking silly pictures of himself. Tomoe tried posing behind him as he did so, flashing a pair of bunny ears behind his head for irony points and wondering if she'd show up — she'd heard lots of stories before about ghosts randomly appearing in pictures. But Kotetsu had framed himself in a way that would've cropped her out even if she _had_ showed up. Oh, well. There was a reason she never let the man handle the camera whenever things needed to be photographed. 

Speaking of things that needed to be photographed, she still hadn't managed to catch Bunny in the shower. Alas.

Against this backdrop of mundanity (well, for Heroes, anyway), Kotetsu and Bunny's basic relationship with and feelings towards each other were shifting, slowly but surely. The sulfur and smoke of Bunny's darker side was starting to bleed into the pine-scented focus of his professional demeanor, and Kotetsu's onion jealousy towards the younger man was fading away in favor of lavender concern. In addition to the basic taste of cream of mushroom dotted with tiny blooms of cinnamon, she'd begun to detect the hint of an asiago cheese baguette in their relationship aura. But the mixing of Bunny's two very different selves disturbed her. She figured that the concern on Kotetsu's part meant that he'd started to notice that something was not quite right with Bunny, and she wondered how he was going to handle things from here on out — or hell, how _Bunny_ was going to handle things, if the friendship between him and Kotetsu was developing to the point where she was tasting fresh bread between them.

When she realized that she was starting to forget very obvious facts about herself like the name of her high school or what instrument she used to love playing, Tomoe realized she was pushing herself way too hard with this back-and-forth between the realms. She sank into the phantasmal memories of Sternbild from more than a century and a half ago and steeped herself within its numinous energies, musing on what she _could_ remember: namely, the information she'd gleaned from her reconnaissance of Kotetsu and his new friend. 

If there was one thing that she liked about a potential relationship between the two of them, it was that she thought that it would benefit Kotetsu to be with someone who was in his line of work (issues of personal compatibility and workplace romances aside). That was one of the weaknesses that she felt she'd had in her relationship with him: that she couldn't endure the trials of the lifestyle by his side because she wasn't a NEXT like he was. Tomoe had confessed this insecurity of hers to him multiple times, and every time he'd reassured her that he saw nothing wrong with her arrangement.

"Don't be silly!" he'd exclaimed once. "I like being able to come home to you to forget about some of the shit I have to deal with as a Hero. Besides, if you were a Hero too, what would happen if we both died in action? Who would take care of Kaede?" 

And Tomoe had to admit that he had a point there. 

But there would be times when her husband would return home, beaten up and broken down, and she could only hold him and cry with him, barely beginning to comprehend the true scope of the weight he shouldered in his vocation. She'd known for a while, of course, of the less savory aspects of the HeroTV world, like dealing with persnickety sponsors, handling media appearances, or even just more general issues of being unable to save everyone while on Hero duty. Those sorts of things were obvious to any person who stopped and thought for a moment about the implications of something like HeroTV.

Actually seeing the battle scars on Kotetsu, however, was a more painful story. Even as he gave himself over to Tomoe in his more despairing moments, he'd retreat within himself, reliving some glimpse of hell that he'd seen earlier that day. Sometimes he'd tell her what it was: that he'd seen people jump to their deaths from a burning building because they'd been scared that a Hero wouldn't save them in time, or that he'd made a fatal blunder in trying to talk down a shooter and it had cost him the lives of two children. But typically he kept his sorrows to himself, saying he didn't want to worry Tomoe with such things. This, of course, only led to her worrying _more_ , and sometimes yelling at him about how they'd married each other for better or for worse, and didn't this fall under the "for worse" category? The issue had ignited some spectacular arguments between the two. Tomoe knew that she couldn't be a part of everything in his life, but dammit, they'd _bonded_ over their mutual interest in HeroTV, plus she'd started falling for him when he saved her from that burning factory after his fight with Antonio. How could a shared love produce moments in which she felt the most estranged from him? It just didn't seem fair.

None of the above would be an issue with Bunny, though. Not only was he a Hero, he was Kotetsu's _partner_ , and not a rival like the other Heroes. _He_ could easily support Kotetsu through the more trying times of their job; _he_ could be there by his side apprehending criminals or saving innocent bystanders or even just fielding intrusive questions from the press. 

And if Bunny himself fell into his own abyss of misery? Kotetsu could catch him. That much Tomoe was sure of.

...though she wondered why she found it easier to imagine things the other way around.

***

Her next visit to the Clear after a full, or at least substantial, recovery caught the two of them in action again for HeroTV. Sort of. They were in an alleyway, with Kotetsu kneeling next to Bunny's body on the ground, shaking him and demanding to know whether he was okay.

Tomoe floated closer, concerned. Both of them were in their armored Hero suits, and didn't seem to be too severely damaged or hurt. Kotetsu was swathed primarily in lavender worry, accompanied by pine focus and smoky irritation. Bunny stank of chlorinated water, which meant that he was unconscious. She didn't know how _that_ worked, since she'd never been aware that unconsciousness could be an emotion, but that was the Haze for you, throwing fastballs when you'd just gotten used to its curveballs.

"Damn you, Bunny, will you wake up already?" Kotetsu grumbled. "If you're going to be sleeping on the job, I'm not gonna _have_ one much longer!" He sighed and opened his HeroTV commlink screen. "Hey, Agnes, do you know how long Beatrice's NEXT power works for?"

_"Depends on how close her victims were at the time they got hit. Why?"_

"She got Bunny."

Agnes swore. _"How close was he standing?"_

Kotetsu paused for a moment of thought. "Twenty feet away, maybe? We were trying to surprise her along Abrams Avenue by taking a shortcut through an alley, but she actually ended up running into the alley before she realized we were here. Bunny charged her with his Hundred Power on, but somehow she managed to swipe him with that sleep wave thingy that she does."

 _"Hrm, if he had his Hundred Power activated when he got hit, he might be fine in about two to three minutes. Beatrice has already run into Dragon Kid, who I suspect will keep her busy for a while."_ She narrowed her eyes. _"What happened to the smelling salts I gave you for something like this?"_

"Uh..."

 _"You lost them, didn't you. I knew I should've given them to Barnaby."_ Agnes sighed. _"We'll send Saito's van over to your location. In the unlikely event that he doesn't wake up before then, we've got smelling salts there."_

"Right." Kotetsu shut off the commlink, then glanced down at Bunny, who was still snoozing peacefully. "Well, up we go!" He scooped Bunny up in his arms and turned right into Tomoe, who had been standing next to her husband —

— and she blanked for a moment before she found herself looking at the inside of a helmet, its interior viewscreen flanked by multiple holographic projections of data. She was drowning in alien sensations that she faintly remembered had been normal to her once: empty stomach, slightly sweaty skin, tired muscles... _breathing_. She registered the feeling of being carried by someone, and blinked.

_I'm...inside Bunny?_

That seemed like a more-or-less reasonable thing to conclude, based on the facts she had at hand. Except for the part where she hadn't planned for this at all, hadn't even _known_ it could actually happen. Of course she'd heard the spooky stories before of spirits possessing the bodies of the living, but the thought hadn't occurred to her to try it out for herself — Tomoe had accepted her death long before it had actually happened. Even as she visited the Clear on a regular basis to see what her loved ones were up to, she'd had no desire to really cross back over. The thought was akin to wanting to live in a mansion: a nice thing to daydream about every once in a while, but unlikely to happen.

But somehow the ghostly equivalent _had_ happened, and Tomoe's mind was tripping over the implications. She had a body again, which meant that she could breathe. She could move. 

She could talk to Kotetsu.

Now didn't seem like a very good time to do it, though, considering he was in the middle of filming an episode for HeroTV. Trying to explain the impossible thing that had just occurred was going to be headache enough without also having to deal with other people watching the exchange. And what in this world or the next had happened to Bunny's spirit, if she was in his body?

She remembered something then, which was amazing considering how her activities over the past week or so had torn at her memories. It was a remark from an old friend of hers who had been into the occult and the supernatural. He'd said that people could only be possessed if they'd agreed to it first. But Bunny was out like a light at the moment, which meant that — if her friend were right — he _couldn't_ have consented to something like this.

Tomoe suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Accident or not, whether her friend were right or not, this didn't sit well with her.

_I have to get out of here._

But how? She was pretty sure something had happened when Kotetsu collided into her spirit form with Bunny's unconscious body, but that didn't shed any light on how she was supposed to leave. _Could_ she even leave? God, she hoped so, otherwise this was going to cause a myriad of problems all around.

Though...it felt really, really nice to be physically close to Kotetsu again. Even if the effect was ruined somewhat by the layers of armor between them.

 _Don't think about that_ , Tomoe scolded herself, swallowing a lump in her — Bunny's — throat. _You're not supposed to be here, you're not supposed to have **done** this, start thinking of ways to fix this situation —_

Everything around her suddenly flashed white for a few moments as she experienced the dizzying sensation of being violently yanked backwards. When she regained awareness again, her vision was stained sepia with the Haze as she saw Kotetsu trying to calm down a rather frantic Bunny, his words faintly garbled as though she were listening to them underwater.

"D-did something happen?" Kotetsu asked. "I mean, besides the whole 'suddenly falling asleep' thing."

Bunny glanced around him, wary. "I thought...it just felt like..." He shook his head slowly. "Never mind. It might simply be an aftereffect of getting hit by that NEXT power." He drew himself up straighter, all traces of discomposure vanishing. "Let's go track Beatrice down again."

"Y'know, she might've already gotten taken down by Dragon Kid," Kotetsu said as the two of them trotted towards the end of the alley.

"Why didn't you go after her?"

"Are you kidding? I couldn't leave you behind!"

"Tch. You could've used the points from her arrest, you know."

"Yeah, but Lloyds would yell at me if I just up and abandoned his star Hero...!"

Their chatter dimmed as they disappeared around a corner. Tomoe remained where she was, feeling disconcerted and a little guilty.

_I need to apologize. Somehow._

She probably technically didn't need to bother. The young man likely didn't know she existed, and he seemed just fine after he'd somehow kicked her ghost out of his body. But Tomoe still felt bad for scaring him like that. And — if she had to be honest with herself — she was also more than a little intrigued with the possibilities suddenly unfolding before her now that she knew that she could borrow the body of someone in the Clear.

She melted back into the Haze, musing as she waited for nightfall.


	5. all I'm asking is to be alive

If there was one thing that being a spirit should've put an end to, it was the need to have to obey the presence of physical boundaries. It didn't seem to affect her so much whenever she just wanted to warp to either Kotetsu or Kaede, but Tomoe suspected that it was because warping somehow condensed the process of navigating such things, which involved finding a temporal layer when the boundary in question, such as a door, was open or otherwise non-existent, and passing through it before forwarding back to the present time. Seriously, wasn't one of the perks of being a ghost supposed to be ignoring all that nonsense? Needless to say, getting back up to Bunny's apartment later that night was a pain, the path beset by (among other things) multiple doors and an elevator. 

Inside, Tomoe glanced around. She didn't detect any chlorine, so Bunny hadn't fallen asleep yet, but she identified the musty scent of old paper, which meant he was likely on his way there. Perfect — that was what she was looking for. Shaking her head at how utterly strange some of these olfactory associations were, Tomoe tracked the scent down a hallway to the bedroom, where she found Bunny curled up under a comforter, with...a pink plush rabbit in his arms.

The bizarrely endearing sight scrambled Tomoe's mind to the point where she momentarily forgot the entire reason she'd even come here. It wasn't an unpleasant thing to see — far from it — but it just seemed so much at odds with what she knew about Bunny. Where had he even gotten it from? She was pretty sure he didn't buy it himself. _Kotetsu. Oh, God, it was Kotetsu, wasn't it? He would totally do something as ridiculous as buying a grown man a giant plush toy._ But what had been the occasion? He'd already gotten Bunny a birthday present. Did he just like Bunny that much already that he'd buy him gifts for no real reason?

Tomoe briefly amused herself with that thought before she went over and sat down on a foot locket in a corner of the room, keeping her distance from Bunny. She'd formulated a plan on how to handle this situation and the many ways it could go wrong, but somehow it only made her feel marginally better about trying to directly approach Bunny about what had happened...and about what she wanted to ask of him. The worst part was that the time she spent on that plan would all be for nothing if she had totally missed the mark on how she could even communicate with him in the first place.

_If he's on the boundary between being awake and being asleep...maybe I can talk to him then._

She'd come up with the theory when reflecting on two facts from earlier: being able to inhabit Bunny's body while still unconscious, and the sensation of being shoved out when he had woken up with her still inside him, which suggested some sort of contact. Crazy? Well, it was all she had to go on. And surely it was no less crazy than some of the things she'd experienced, seen, and done while in the Haze. 

"Bunny, can you hear me? I need to talk to you," Tomoe called out, and she braced herself for complete mission failure.

Much to her relief, Bunny responded after a few seconds. More specifically, his _spirit_ did, sitting up from his prone form and looking around — an unexpected development, but one that didn't disrupt her planning. As soon as he spotted Tomoe, he backed up against the headboard of his bed, squinting at her suspiciously. Or maybe he just needed his glasses. She wondered what she looked like to him. Hopefully not as terrible as some of the other spirits in the Haze; she didn't want to spook the poor thing anymore than she already had, or was going to.

"Wh-who are you?" Bunny asked. "And how'd you get in here?"

She waved. "My name's Tomoe. I am...or was, I suppose...Kotetsu's wife. As for how I got in here, well, I'm a ghost — I died about five years ago."

His eyes widened. "Kotetsu's wife...?"

"I'm not here to make trouble for you, I promise," she continued. "I've just been out and about for a while, checking up on Kotetsu and seeing what he's been up to." She paused. "Which is, um, how I ended up accidentally possessing your body earlier today. I wanted to apologize for that."

Bunny's mouth dropped a little. "You did _what?"_

"I temporarily took control of you while you were unconscious after being attacked by that NEXT — Beatrice, was it? I didn't realize it would happen...Kotetsu moved into me while holding you, and the next thing I knew I was looking at the inside of your helmet." She shrugged with a contrite smile. "However it happened, I'm sorry about it. I didn't mean to scare you like that."

He just stared at her with the most fantastically confounded look on his face, no doubt still trying to process the fact that he was _talking to the ghost of his partner's dead wife._ "Well...a-apology accepted," he stammered after a while. "I guess."

Tomoe relaxed. It made her feel better, even though she suspected he was mostly saying it just to make sure she wouldn't get mad at him or something. "Thank you."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "You're...not going to do that to me again, are you?"

Thank God for that segue into the next topic of conversation she wanted to bring up. "Only if it's okay with you." Upon seeing his narrowed eyes and worried frown, she went on: "I only want to be able to talk to Kotetsu and let him know that it's all right for him to move on from me. You may or may not have noticed that he still wears his wedding ring, even after all this time, and hasn't been dating or seeing anyone. I'm flattered that he seems to think that I'll be the only one he'll ever love like that, but...that man isn't meant to be alone." Another shrug. "I could talk to him like I'm talking to you now, and certainly it's my fallback plan, but he'd probably be more inclined to listen to me if I were there 'in person'." She let out a soft giggle. "Kotetsu's not exactly a man of subtlety."

Bunny chuckled. "I'll say." Silence fell as he glanced off to the side, apparently studying some fascinating spot on the carpet.

Curious about what was going on inside his head, Tomoe sniffed to get the scent of his emotions. Then she remembered that he was talking to his _spirit_ and thus couldn't smell what he was feeling. When had she gotten this used to being in the Haze? "You don't quite believe all this, do you," she said. Not an accusation; merely a friendly observation.

He shook his head, blond curls bouncing. "Can't say that I do. I could just be having a particularly lucid dream right now. Though...I have to say that this is an interesting change from the usual."

"Ah, I don't blame you. I wouldn't have guessed even a quarter of this while I was still alive."

Bunny hesitated, seeming to consider something. "Well, if you're supposedly dead..." He looked back at Tomoe. "You wouldn't happen to have seen my parents, have you? They were killed twenty years ago."

"I have, as a matter of fact." She held up a hand to stem the tide of questions. "But I haven't been able to communicate clearly with them. Talking with other spirits can be odd here — I think we usually end up talking past each other because of the nature of this place."

"The nature of this place?"

"Long story. The most important thing you need to know is that I've seen them visit you recently. I think they're very worried about you."

Bunny suddenly looked very young and very small, even more so now than he did when he was clutching his rabbit plush — a child struck with guilt for unnecessarily upsetting his parents. "I...I see." He swallowed. "Thank you for telling me that." His hands clenched at his blanket, or at least they attempted to, considering he was a spirit for the moment. "If you can, tell them that I'm sorry for worrying them, and that they'll be able to rest soon. Tell them that I'm very close to avenging their deaths and bringing justice to their murderer."

 _I'm fairly certain that's the last thing they're concerned about,_ Tomoe thought. _Then again, what do I know? I've seen some questionable parenting in my time, whether alive or dead. Maybe your parents **are** the sort of folk who'd want you to find out who killed them, no matter if it ended up destroying you in the process._ She highly doubted it, though, remembering the gentleness and care with which their ghosts had reached out to Bunny.

"I'll do my best to talk to them if I see them again," she promised. She noticed that Bunny didn't seem to have realized he wasn't actually grasping onto his blanket, which again led her to wonder how things looked from his perspective. His body still emanated that old paper smell, so he was likely still in a partial dream-state at the moment and thus not quite aware that he wasn't actually awake. "Does that convince you of my presence?"

"...not really, no," Bunny admitted. "This is a dream, isn't it? My mind could just be making up weird things. I mean, if it started off with you saying you're Kotetsu's dead wife who accidentally possessed me earlier today..."

She laughed. "Fair enough! Then how about this?" She gestured with a hand. "Let me borrow your body again just for tonight, and I'll write something for you to find when you wake up tomorrow. But only" — and here she held up a finger for emphasis — "if you're willing to let me do that."

Bunny stared at her again for a while. "That's _all_ you'll do? Use my body to write something and then leave?"

Tomoe nodded. It was technically true. She still hadn't figured out how she could get out of his body on her own, but she thought that she could use this opportunity, if it was given to her, to learn just that. At any rate, she was certain she'd just be booted out automatically come the morning, when Bunny woke up. It wasn't high on her list of pleasant experiences, but at least it was an option when all else failed.

"I suppose that's safe enough," said Bunny, though he understandably still looked and sounded dubious about the matter. "What are you going to write? So I know what to look for."

Tomoe told him. She'd figured out something beforehand that she was certain Bunny wouldn't otherwise know unless she'd told him in this "dream." It was also, she thought, somewhat relevant to the whole situation. Not that something like that was strictly necessary, but it might help with Bunny remembering the message in question.

"Interesting," he remarked. "Is that from something?"

"It's part of a song I liked back in the day."

"Is that so? It's a bit lengthy, but I should be able to remember it." He nodded towards the door. "There's a notepad and a pen on my desk in the living room."

"I'll look for that, then."

More silence.

"So...what now?" Bunny asked.

"You'll have to go to sleep," Tomoe said. "From what I can tell, it doesn't seem I can use your body while you're even still the least bit conscious."

He blinked. "You mean I'm not already asleep?"

"You're only part of the way there."

A furrowed brow. "How can you tell?"

"Ah...I can smell it on you."

"...you can _what?"_

Tomoe laughed again. "It's another long story. Being dead is quite strange." She wanted to come over and pat him on the head, he was just so adorably confused, but she didn't want to risk accidental possession again. "I'll leave you alone for now so you can sleep. I'll try to visit you again as soon as possible after I leave in the morning, but I can't make any promises about when. This place can be unpredictable when it comes to the flow of time." She gave a farewell wave. "Good night, Bunny."

The young man did a double-take then, only now seeming to realize that he'd never actually formally introduced himself to her. "Are you going to use that name on me too, like Kotetsu does?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Tomoe tilted her head. "Does it bother you?"

A pause.

...Bunny dropped his gaze, looking embarrassed.

"It used to," he mumbled.

She smiled as she got up. "Well, then, you'll be Bunny to me, too."

Tomoe faded into the Haze just enough so that she could leave the room and give Bunny some time to fall asleep, which she figured would take longer than usual given the bombshells she'd just dropped on him in their conversation. When she finally caught the scent of chlorinated water, she returned to the present, taking a seat on the bed next to Bunny, and reached out to press a ghostly hand to his arm.

Nothing.

 _So the trigger for possession isn't as sensitive as I'd thought,_ mused Tomoe. _But then what would activate it?_ Since a casual touch didn't work, she decided to take the opposite route and "lie down" in his body, as though getting inside a strangely-shaped box.

There — she blanked out before being swamped with a multitude of sensations, most of them having to do with how soft, warm, and cozy Bunny's bed was. Apparently possession required significant body contact of some sort, which made sense to her. With a grunt, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and tested her mobility, moving her arms around and wiggling her fingers and remembering that she had to breathe again.

It was different possessing Bunny's body now than when he was inside his Hero suit. With this chance to take advantage of his full range of movement, Tomoe became very aware of just how _heavy_ it seemed to actually have a physical body. Even without the weight of the cybernetic armor, she felt hedged in and trapped, so accustomed was she to being an airy spirit. Plus, she was a guy now. There were...certain body bits where she'd never experienced them before. She tried not to think too hard — er, too _much_ — about this particular _package_. This particular situation. Dammit, that was really bad. She needed to go and do what she said she'd do before she ended up doing something that would guarantee she could never look Bunny in the face again.

With a blush burning her cheeks, Tomoe threw off the covers and got to her feet, stumbling as she reacquainted herself with the motions involved in walking. She groped her way over to the door in the dark and opened it, following the hallway outside to the living room, where she found (as Bunny had said) a notepad and a pen on the desk. She grabbed the pen and scribbled the words of her message to him, even adding her name at the end for bonus credibility. When she was done, she headed over to the floor-length window overlooking the Sternbild skyline and sat on the sill, admiring the lights of the city all aglow like a massive star cluster in the darkness. It was a breathtaking view either here or in the Haze — one that she wondered whether Bunny ever appreciated, trapped as he was in his own shadows.

 _This is something that should be shared with someone,_ Tomoe thought wistfully, remembering the first time Kotetsu had showed her the Sternbild skyline. They'd gone out for a celebratory dinner at Hyperion Tower after he'd been announced King of Heroes in his first year on HeroTV. Post-dinner, they took the elevator up to the open-air skydeck, where Kotetsu wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and rested his chin on her head as Tomoe leaned gently forward on the railing to better take in the sight. It was certainly impressive on its own, but having Kotetsu there with her elevated the experience to something else — a mystery, perhaps, in the ancient sense of the word. Something that transformed mundane perception into a transcendental affair.

After a few minutes of reminiscing and contemplation, Tomoe sighed. She really should find out if there was a way for her to leave Bunny's body of her own volition. A quick glance at the clock on Bunny's bedside table as she'd left the bedroom had told her it was around two-thirty in the morning, so she figured she had some time to spare, but the thought also occurred to her that Bunny might be an insomniac, waking up after only two or three hours of fitful sleep, or that maybe he didn't even require as much sleep as other people. The point was that she needed to make the most of her time in his body before she got kicked out of it, not knowing whether she'd have another chance at something like this.

Reluctantly, Tomoe got up from the windowsill to return to the bedroom, leaving behind the inscribed proof of her presence on Bunny's desk.

_"I only want to see if I can shake you out of sleep, and bring you out under this flooded sky at any price. -Tomoe"_


	6. I saw it begin to dawn on us both

Tomoe decided not to return to Bunny right away, thinking that she should probably give him a bit of space to consider her request (and to let the weird experience sink in a little). Instead, when she wasn't wandering the Haze, she checked up on her family, spending some time watching Kaede at ice skating practice before dropping in on Kotetsu having a few drinks at the Hero's Bar with Nathan and Antonio. She saw Kotetsu again one more time after that, having lunch with a young girl that she thought she recognized as an out-of-costume Dragon Kid. Tomoe quirked an eyebrow at the outing, then realized that Dragon Kid must remind Kotetsu of Kaede, even though about the only thing the two girls had in common (that she knew of) were being in roughly the same age bracket. The ordinariness of those visits left her unprepared for the surprises waiting for her when she came around to Bunny's place again.

It was two weeks since she'd been here last, according to the date she'd spotted during a news broadcast on her way to the apartment, but it smelled like a year's worth of changes had occurred. When Tomoe materialized into the living room, she was bathed not in the reek of fury that she'd come to associate with its usual occupant, but instead the cherry blossom perfume of relief and satisfaction. Its mild scent couldn't mask the presence of sulfur and smoke, but the latter smells had dwindled almost to an afterthought. The air was peppered with little bursts here and there of mint, oranges, and cinnamon, like aromatic fireworks. Conclusion: Bunny was happy about something (if also somewhat bewildered by it), and apparently thinking about someone he was very, very fond of.

What in the world had she _missed_ while she was gone?

Tomoe rushed over to the bedroom, finding Bunny in bed with that rabbit doll of his. She let out a vexed sigh once it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't smelled old paper when she got in, meaning he wasn't even sleepy yet. Then again, considering all of the other scents she'd gotten blindsided with, he was probably too excited about something (or _someone_ ) to fall asleep. Reining in her impatience, she took a seat at the foot of his bed and entertained herself by singing any songs she could remember as she gazed out the window at the nighttime view of Sternbild. The activity would have the added benefit of letting Bunny know she was here once he drifted into the appropriate dream-state.

She had loved singing, and music in general, ever since she could remember. Her parents claimed that she'd been singing even before she knew how to talk, vocalizing the tones of words she couldn't pronounce yet with perfect pitch. During her younger school years, she took individual lessons, led class choirs, and even won a few local competitions. Even as she went to college to major in business at the urging of her parents, Tomoe dreamed of eventually becoming a performer. Not like a musical idol known more for cutesy poses, shallow tunes, and trendy outfits than actual talent, but more as a bard traveling the country to share her thoughts and stories with anyone who would listen, with nothing more than herself and her trusty...what instrument had she played, again? It wasn't piano, she knew how to play that but it wasn't to her preferences. The instrument had strings, but it wasn't violin or guitar. Ah — ukelele. She'd played the ukelele, enamored as she was of its distinctive soprano twang. More than once she'd played it for Kotetsu wearing nothing but leis, a bikini, and a grass skirt.

...huh. That was kind of embarrassing to think back on, now that she remembered it. But at least Kotetsu always got a kick out of the act. And he deserved it anyway — he'd always been her biggest fan, from the moment he first heard her original work. He was always the loudest to cheer whenever she performed, almost obnoxiously so; he stood up in her defense when her parents _and_ his own mother ragged on her for wanting to leave a stable office job to pursue a more creative path, and overall encouraged her to follow her dreams like she'd encouraged him to follow his. Tomoe grew to find something romantic in the idea of a Hero/musician team. Sometimes (usually when she was kind of tipsy) she liked to imagine that she'd be performing live at the same time that the latest episode of HeroTV would be airing, and the timing would produce some sort of mystical resonance that would only further empower herself and Kotetsu in their chosen professions. Silly? Doubtlessly so, but it made her happy and it definitely amused Kotetsu when she confided in him about it. She hoped the both of them could be heroes to people in different ways.

Then Kotetsu got his HeroTV gig, and they got married that same year, and then the next year Kaede was born, and at some point in the middle of life happening her aspirations fell to pieces like a toppling house of cards. Any time Tomoe could have spent working on her songs or otherwise trying to put together something resembling a musical career had to be shoved aside in favor of caring for a child _and_ a husband coming home from work needing someone to help him forget the hell he'd seen. Sometimes she could chase away the demons with her songs, but more often than not there wasn't anything she could do except be there for Kotetsu to hold onto and cry with. She didn't mind supporting him like that, but it drained her. And while it was true that Kotetsu made enough money as a Hero (even after his damage fines) that he could easily support the three of them if Tomoe quit her job to strike out on her own, it was precisely for that reason that she felt she couldn't do something like that. Given such a gift, how could she turn away from her family for even just one second? And so her dreams were shelved, lovingly but sadly tucked away like a set of favorite clothes she rarely got to wear and didn't have the space for in her everyday life.

Things got better, eventually. Kotetsu got used to his work, or at least developed mechanisms to prevent himself from falling apart so badly so often. Kaede grew into a well-behaved toddler who didn't need quite as much attention as before, and Anju even took on babysitting duties for a few nights a month to give Tomoe time to herself. And in that time, she rediscovered the stories inside her that she wanted to sing, the melodies in her soul that wanted to dance on the strings of her ukelele. She even managed to befriend a fellow musician who helped her record and mix a few demos that she posted on a website and sent to potentially interested record producers.

Then the cancer stomped in and destroyed her within six months.

"You sing quite well," Bunny murmured.

Startled, Tomoe turned around. She'd been so occupied with seeing how much she remembered of her repertoire that she hadn't been paying much attention to the growing scent of old paper. "Thank you," she said. "Kotetsu sings pretty well, himself. And he can pull off an amazing falsetto."

Bunny's pale eyebrows scrunched together and the corners of his mouth dropped into a disbelieving frown, apparently trying to decide whether she was pulling his leg or not. (She wasn't, as a matter of fact. Kotetsu's vocal ability was really quite astounding. It was part of why she'd been so irked during high school when he kept on skipping choir classes. She'd wanted to teach him to _use_ that voice, dammit.) "I've never heard him sing."

"You should ask him."

"I'm not sure he'd indulge me. Unless he were drunk, in which case I'd wager that he wouldn't be performing at his best."

"You might be surprised." Pause. "At him singing for you if you asked, that is. It's true that he's terrible when he's drunk."

Bunny smiled faintly. "Perhaps you're right. The past few days have been full of surprises, after all."

"Oh?" This was exactly what Tomoe had been waiting to hear. She beamed at him. "Do tell."

Bunny scooted back against his headboard to sit on his pillow, as he had the first time he'd talked with her, but this time it seemed less a self-defense mechanism and more like he was preparing for a long conversation with a friend. "Well, a couple of days ago we found the person who killed my parents and...apprehended him."

That would explain a lot about the shifts in the emotional scents of his apartment. "And am I to infer that Kotetsu helped with that?"

He nodded, and began telling the harrowing story of a man named Jake Martinez, who was a member of the crime syndicate Ouroboros and a lethal NEXT. He had been imprisoned at least fifteen years ago by Mr. Legend for crimes unrelated to the Brooks' murder, but recently his comrades, a woman named Kriem and a henchman named Chuckman, had managed to take the entire city of Sternbild hostage in order to force the mayor to authorize the release of Jake. But it didn't stop there — Jake decided that he wanted to celebrate his newfound freedom by fighting the city's Heroes. If just one of them could defeat him, Ouroboros would free the city once and for all.

"Jake was a tricky opponent," continued Bunny. "We didn't learn until later that he actually had _two_ NEXT powers, not just one, and it was his other power of mind reading that allowed him to get the upper hand on us for a while. He demanded one-on-one matches with the Heroes, and completely overpowered Sky High, Rock Bison, and Kotetsu before I went up against him." His gaze went distant then, as though reliving the memory in his mind. "Kotetsu fared the worst of the three...but he was also the only one who managed to get a hit in on Jake."

Tomoe winced. "Let me guess: the latter led to the former."

"Jake didn't take that development very well, no. And it wasn't even a particularly impressive attack; Kotetsu had accidentally swiped him in the middle of collapsing. His own injuries were extensive enough that they had to rush him to the ICU not long afterwards. Oh, he woke up soon enough," he added once he noticed Tomoe's distressed look. "He was able to watch the live footage of my own fight while in the hospital, and that was when he somehow figured out what Jake's other power was. So despite his injuries, that stupid old man returned to the scene of the fight to tell me what that other power was in person."

"He didn't just call you over your communicator and tell you that way?"

"He wanted to give me something that would throw Jake off his guard and allow me to actually hurt him." Bunny snorted. "Would you believe that Kotetsu lied to me about what the power was at first? He said Jake had enhanced hearing and was predicting our attacks by listening to the movements of our muscles."

Tomoe just stared for a while as she considered that. "Yeah, that sounds like something Kotetsu would make up, all right," she agreed fondly.

"It's ridiculous, isn't it? But it was the only way to get around Jake's mind-reading ability. If he'd told me right from the start, Jake would've known and prepared for it." His expression turned pensive. "And...I think by coming to tell me in person, Kotetsu wanted to make up for upsetting me about something earlier."

Despite the solemn shift in his tone, Tomoe was heartened listening to Bunny talk. He had been friendly enough during their first conversation (which was a miracle in and of itself, considering the circumstances), but now he was positively chatty. It was a change she wouldn't mind getting used to, and a change she hoped boded well for him in the future. "Again, that sounds like Kotetsu, all right. How is he doing now?"

"Well, he's currently hospital-bound, thanks to the injuries he sustained. He shouldn't have left in the first place, but he bluffed his way out by pretending that his Hundred Power gave him the ability to heal himself."

Tomoe smacked a pale palm to her forehead. "That _idiot."_

Bunny laughed — a heartfelt laugh, not the derisive snorts he usually directed towards Kotetsu or the charming little chuckles he used while addressing the adoring masses. "That was my reaction, as well."

"How long will he be out for?"

"I believe the doctors said he should be stable enough to return to work within two or three weeks." An amused smirk. "That is, if he doesn't do anything stupid in the meantime."

"That's a pretty big if." Tomoe loved her husband, but really, the things he set his mind on sometimes...

"Normally I'd say so too, but Fire Emblem threatened him with an early cremation if he didn't start taking care of himself." Bunny pursed his lips. "Sometimes I think that Nathan puts up a silly front most of the time in order to spare us the horror of his serious side. It's not something you can handle seeing on a regular basis."

Tomoe snickered a bit. "Are _you_ okay?" she asked, a little more sedately.

Bunny waved her off. "I'm fine. I got kicked around, pushed myself a little harder than usual, but it's nothing I can't deal with." He gave a soft smile. "Thanks for asking."

"I'm glad to hear it."

A beat. 

Bunny cleared his throat. "So, um...about that note you left me last week..." 

"You found it?"

He nodded, folding his hands on his lap and gazing down at them. "I'm still rather...skeptical about this, to be honest." He closed his eyes. "I actually spent some time trying to confirm your identity with Kotetsu. Without letting him know about this whole ghostly possession thing, of course."

There was a long enough pause then that Tomoe realized Bunny was debating on telling her something. "Kotetsu didn't want to talk about me, did he."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not offended." She was, however, worried over what this inability to discuss the topic of her death meant for him. Clearly this was one of the things she needed to talk to him about. Funny how that all circled in on itself. "I know how he copes with the more unpleasant things in his life. What, exactly, did you find out from him?"

"Your name and what you looked like, mainly, since I remembered him saying in an earlier conversation that you'd died five years ago." He looked up at her, his eyes sharp and focused. "When did you two meet?"

"High school. I was our class representative; Kotetsu was a delinquent who liked to skip school and get into fights." She grinned. "Needless to say, I spent a lot of time trying to keep him in line."

Bunny was trying his best not to laugh too hard. "He mentioned that you met in high school, but not that he was...or that you were..." He shook his head. "Somehow I'm not surprised."

Still grinning, Tomoe shrugged. _"Plus ça change..."_

 _"Plus c'est pareil,"_ Bunny finished.

She blinked, dredging up dusty memories of high school French. _The more that changes, the more it's the same._ "Hm. I'd always heard the second part as _'plus c'est la même chose'_."

"As I understand it, that was the original incarnation of the line, but I prefer _'plus c'est pareil'_ for its brevity."

"Ha! I can understand that."

Silence.

"Well, I suppose there's no point in dragging this out any longer than necessary," Bunny said, a new determination settling into his voice. "Whatever is going on here, it doesn't appear to be something that's just inside my head, and the identity you claim seems consistent with what I've been able to find out from Kotetsu.

"So, I think I want to try to make things between us work, for Kotetsu's sake. I don't know much about him still, but if you really are his wife, you should know what he needs the best." He met Tomoe's gaze. "Since he helped me out against Jake, it only seems right that I should try doing this for him, as thanks."

Tomoe felt as fuzzy and warm as a fluffy cat. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "I really do appreciate your trust in me, and your willingness to go along with this unusual situation." Then, a more mischievous smile as she added: "And I promise I won't do anything _bad_ while in your body." 

Bunny went as pink as his rabbit plush, which was amazing considering that he was in spirit form. "When are you going to...um...borrow me again?" he managed to ask after composing himself again.

She pondered this. "I don't know. As I mentioned before, time passes differently between your time and where I am, so it'll be a little hard to plan for that. I wouldn't want to do it when it would cause you or Kotetsu problems, especially because now you're both recovering from a major fight." She tilted her head. "Would it be okay with you to invite him here, once he's better? I wouldn't want to take you too far from home."

"That should be fine."

"All right, then here's what I'm thinking. I'll return in a few weeks to see how things are going, and once they seem to be okay I'll take time to rest and store up energy in order to stay in your world longer. Then I'll talk to you again like I'm doing now and see if your schedule the next day allows for you to invite Kotetsu over, whenever it's convenient for the both of you. If it is, I'll be waiting here to conserve my energy."

Bunny took a moment to think. "And then you'll just...take over?"

"I can't use your body while you're still conscious, remember?" She simpered. "You'll have to knock yourself out somehow."

"Sleeping pills, then — I've got some in my bathroom. And what if something happens to disrupt this plan after you've talked to me?"

"Then we just try again another time, if you're willing. No worries."

Bunny sighed and put a hand to his face. "...I can't believe I've just agreed to something like this."

Tomoe was stung with worry and guilt again. "If it really makes you uncomfortable, we don't have to. Like I said, I could just talk to Kotetsu the same way I'm talking to you now..."

Another headshake, more vehement this time. "No, I owe this to him. He nearly died giving me the missing piece of the Jake puzzle. Something like this pales in comparison to that. And even if it doesn't work out quite the way we want it to, he probably deserves to get in a few laughs at my expense for once." Pause. "Don't tell him I said that, though."

"I'm sorry, I was too busy admiring your hair and completely missed anything incriminating you may have said in the past few moments," Tomoe said blandly.

Bunny smirked at her. "I can see why Kotetsu married you."

"That's only because you don't have your glasses on right now. I'm sure you'd be seeing something else if you were wearing them."

"I'm not that nearsighted."

"Lucky you. I was practically blind without my pair until Kotetsu helped pay for laser correction surgery for me." She rolled her eyes. "Not that that stopped him afterwards from occasionally calling me 'Glasses Girl', like he did back in high school."

"Ah...so you also received an unfortunate nickname from him."

She sighed. "I don't know what is it with that man and nicknames."

"He probably did it just to annoy me, in my case. We didn't exactly start out on the right foot."

She snorted. "We didn't either — I was always on his case about all the fights he was getting into and the classes he skipped. And that's just the beginning of what I can remember. It was so bad that one time our homeroom teacher gave me an extra gift at the end of the school year, out of sympathy for having to put up with him."

"I always have to make sure he does the paperwork he's supposed to fill out, like for reporting fines and expenses," Bunny said. "If I don't, he just dumps it on me while he goes out and does something else."

"Yeah, I remember him complaining about that part of his job a lot." She crossed her arms and mimicked his recalcitrant tone and childish pout. _"'We're Heroes, we're supposed to be saving people! Why do I have to worry about all of this crap?'"_

"Exactly. And if you try to nag him about it, he just says..."

 _"'What are you, my mother?'"_ they chimed in unison.

A beat.

Bunny blinked, surprised.

Tomoe just stared at him for a good long while.

"...ah," she said slowly. "I think I see why Kotetsu likes you." _Aside from the good looks, that is._

He didn't look convinced. "Even though I've been...less-than-friendly towards him?"

"Mmm-hmm." Fully expecting Bunny's next question to be why that was the case, Tomoe quickly set to work coming up with possible answers that didn't sound as potentially creepy as _you remind him of me._

Thankfully, he instead muttered, "Well, he's a strange, meddling old man. Who knows what goes on in his mind." He made a careless motion with a hand. "Who would want to know, even?"

"Certainly not _you_ , right?" she asked in a tone that made it quite clear she didn't believe that for one moment.

"I don't lose sleep over the matter, if that's what you're saying."

"Of course you don't. I'm sure that cute little bunny plush of yours chases away all of those bad thoughts. By the way, who gave you that?"

Bunny blushed _again_. He tried valiantly to cover the doll with his blanket — failing, of course, because it wasn't his body that was moving. "Birthday gift. From _all_ of the other Heroes," he emphasized.

Tomoe hummed. "I don't recall seeing it then. Did they give it to you earlier or something?"

"From what I was told later, there was — " He did a double-take. "Wait, you were there that day?'

"First time I ever saw you for myself. Before then I only had Kotetsu's word to go on." She couldn't help grinning widely. "Nice teamwork taking down that NEXT, by the way. What was it that one man told you? Oh, right, that you were 'completely in sync' with Kotetsu." She laughed. "You two really _do_ make good partners."

The young man looked positively mortified now, not meeting her eyes at all and actually starting to fidget a little. Tomoe began to understand why Kotetsu liked to bug him so much: it was just too _easy_. And a lot of fun. But she decided to take mercy on his poor heart, and got up to leave.

"Anyway, I'll catch you later," she said, heading for the door. "Take care, Bunny."

"W-wait."

She turned around. "Hmm?"

"Have...have you seen my parents at all since the last time we talked?" Bunny asked, his green eyes wide. "Do you know if they're at peace?"

The cheer dropped from her countenance. "I'm sorry. I haven't seen them or talked to them."

It wasn't for lack of trying. When she wasn't resting or visiting the Clear, Tomoe had tracked down one of the few spirits she knew she could reliably talk to, an old lady who'd been sensitive to this sort of thing when she was alive. She had been the one who taught Tomoe some of the basics of navigating the Haze, including how to interpret the strange things she was suddenly smelling and tasting. During their most recent conversation, Tomoe had learned that it was only spirits with great power or spirits who had found something to haunt (a place, a person, an object) who could be tracked down or at least more easily located than most other spirits. Bunny's parents seemed more likely to fall under the latter category, but she never saw them around him after that first visit on his birthday night. And she didn't know where to start looking for the remains of their burnt-down house.

Bunny nodded, resigned, as though he'd been expecting her answer. "I see. Maybe you'll find them later."

"Or they'll find you," she said.

"...or that."

His reaction was a bit hard for Tomoe to read, but she suspected that his revenge hunt was less about actually trying to please his parents, and more about Bunny trying to find his own closure for their deaths — closure that he hadn't found in the past two decades for some inexplicable reason.

But now that he'd gotten it, he really had changed, hadn't he? He smelled, looked, and sounded freer than Tomoe had ever seen him in the short time she'd known him. Just that one thing had made all the difference.

And now that things were taking a turn for the better with Bunny, maybe now it was time for Tomoe to settle things with a certain tiger of hers.


	7. a reason not to want this, but I forgot

The more Tomoe thought about it, the more this whole thing suddenly seemed like a really bad idea.

So she tried not thinking about it, obviously, staring at the wall across from her with great intent as she sat in the recliner in Bunny's living room. Except that wasn't working because she was a thinky sort of person by nature. One would think that the time she spent before this moment thinking about this plan would've thinked all of the thoughts right out of her, but no, apparently all of that preparation just made her _more_ inclined to think about things. Mostly the things that could go wrong. And the worst that could happen, as far as she could tell, was...

...well, nothing too world-endingly horrible, actually. Her old lady spirit friend had told her that the actual act of possession was harmless; the only trouble she really had to worry about was whatever trouble she got up to while in Bunny's body. And all she was going to do was talk to Kotetsu, which wasn't exactly a high-risk activity. There was still the issue of Bunny waking up unexpectedly and booting her spirit out, but Tomoe figured that she should at least have a few hours, which should be more than enough time to talk some sense into her husband.

But what if Kotetsu wasn't happy to see her or hear from her? What if he freaked out and didn't believe her no matter what she said? What if this incident somehow completely ruined any sort of bond he had with Bunny in the process? What if the possession ended up having some sort of unfortunate side effect that neither she nor her spirit friend anticipated and it messed up Bunny forever? God, why in the world had she ever thought this was going to be anywhere near a reasonable idea? Stories of spirits crossing over into the realm of the living never ended well — at least not without a lot of grief involved. And "well" was a word that usually needed a lot of qualifiers in such stories, considering the extent of the havoc wreaked as a result.

Not for the first time, Tomoe wondered if maybe she would've been better off just "letting go" like most other spirits, becoming little more than a recording of a person and their memories, instead of something that still possessed active individuality and will. Then she wouldn't have been around to concoct such a mind-bogglingly ridiculous scheme.

When Bunny walked through the front door with Kotetsu trailing behind him, Tomoe wished she could scream at him to get the hell out right now and go take Kotetsu to a bar or something, because that would be a much better use of his time than going along with her preposterous plan. In fact, she kind of hoped he would chicken out on her. She wouldn't blame him at all if he did. But no, Tomoe smelled the pine focus on him, even through the pungent cloud of acetone nervousness that filled the air in his presence. Bunny was determined to go through with this no matter what.

"I need to use the bathroom for a bit," he told Kotetsu as he took off his jacket and boots. "I'll be back. Don't touch my computer while I'm gone."

"Ah, but your cell phone is free game, right?" Kotetsu said, smirking as he made his way over to the recliner.

"Keep dreaming, old man. If I find out you've been messing with my phone again, I'll kill you."

"Hey! What happened to calling me by my name for once?"

Bunny didn't answer, padding into the hallway to head for the bathroom. Tomoe swiftly followed after him.

Inside the bathroom, Bunny closed the door but left it unlocked. He filled a glass with water, then opened a cabinet to fetch a bottle of sleeping pills, shaking out two of them into his hand. With that done, he sat down cross-legged on the floor and pressed himself up against a wall. In his lap, the hand holding the pills unfurled like a flower, revealing the seeds of the choice before him.

Tomoe sat next to him, grimacing at how strong the acetone smell was at this close distance. "Remember, you don't have to do this if you don't want to," she reassured him, knowing he couldn't hear her but hoping that at least the intent behind her words could reach him. "I won't be upset, I promise."

It took another thirty seconds, but Bunny eventually went ahead and downed the pills, finishing off the entire glass of water in the process. With a trembling hand, he set down the glass beside him, then pulled out a folded piece of paper and stuck it inside.

"If you're there, Tomoe," he whispered, voice barely audible, "don't worry about the note. It's just in case this doesn't work out for whatever reason and Kotetsu ends up finding me passed out in my own bathroom. It lets him know that I took some sleeping pills and that I'll be fine in a couple of hours, and that I'll explain everything myself afterwards."

_Oh._

Of all things she'd been thinking about, she hadn't considered that. Bless Bunny and his foresight. She laughed and patted his hand.

Left with nothing else to do but wait, Tomoe began singing again, this time starting with a lullaby-like tune. She got through two songs and the beginnings of a third before she noticed the scent of old paper swirling up and dispersing the acetone. She paused as she looked over at Bunny and saw his head drooping into his left shoulder, his eyes closed. That didn't look like the most comfortable position to be sleeping in, but if the pills were strong enough to start knocking him out this soon, they could probably make sleeping on a bed of broken glass seem pleasant.

"Keep singing," Bunny suddenly said.

"Hm?"

"Keep singing," he repeated, his spirit looking up at her briefly. "It's nice."

Tomoe smiled and did as he requested.

It took another two songs before the old paper gave way to chlorinated water. Tomoe dove into Bunny's body before she could second-guess herself, and winced at the sudden crick in her neck. Yeah, that _definitely_ had not been a good position to fall asleep in. She made a mental note to leave him in his nice bed once she was done.

After rubbing at her neck a bit to shake off the last of the cramps, Tomoe unfolded her legs and got to her feet, grabbing onto the edge of the sink for support. She spent a few more moments acclimating herself to having a body for the first time in two months, then walked over to the door. Her hand was reaching out for the handle when it occurred to her that she still didn't know how she should greet Kotetsu when she saw him again. Should she just steamroll him with the details, or let him interrogate her? What sort of introduction would be the least likely to freak him out? Where should she even...

...forget it. She'd spent enough time thinking. Now she just had to go and _do_ something.

Tomoe found Kotetsu sitting on the recliner and playing a game on Bunny's phone, which he'd likely swiped from his jacket pocket. "Geez, you sure took your sweet time!" he exclaimed once he noticed her. "What were you doing in there? Did you eat something bad earlier? Or did you fall into the toilet and get stuck?"

"I..." Tomoe stopped, momentarily distracted upon hearing herself speak with Bunny's voice. She mentally smacked herself. Of _course_ she was using Bunny's voice, _she was in his body_. Had she really been expecting something as dramatic as her voice being overdubbed with his, like in movies, or even just replacing his voice entirely with her own? Then again, she was a ghost who smelled emotions. That was probably loads weirder than vocal dissonance.

Kotetsu raised an eyebrow. "Is everything okay with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

She let out an ironic laugh. "I _am_ a ghost."

"Huh?"

"Kotetsu...it's me. Tomoe."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Hey, that's not funny," he said, ending his game and wagging the phone at her reproachfully. "What kinda joke is this? Is that why you were asking me about my wife back then?"

"No, really, it's me." Tomoe held her hands out in a placating manner, and tried her best not to rush through her next words. "I'm a spirit now. Bunny was nice enough to let me use his body so I could talk to you. He's unconscious at the moment, so I was able to move in and borrow him for a bit."

A skeptical look. "Seriously, what are — "

"We met in high school and you saved me from that burning factory after fighting with Antonio!" Tomoe tore through her memories, trying to find truths to speak through the sudden lump in her throat. "I once punched you during an argument over whether Mr. Legend or Lady Iris was the better Hero! You really wanted to name our daughter Nami but I said no because that was the name of someone I hated from college!" Her hands clenched into desperate fists. "Is that enough for you? Do I have to tell you more? I can, if you want."

Kotetsu's caramel-colored skin went parchment pale. He set the phone on the table and slowly stood up, his eyes never leaving her. He looked Tomoe up and down, as though he could find the lies in her claims that way. But there were no lies to be found, of course; she'd laid it bare for him. Now it was just a matter of how he would handle it.

Finally, he spoke.

"What did you make me promise the last time I saw you?" Kotetsu asked quietly.

She didn't hesitate. "That you should always be a Hero, no matter what."

Kotetsu rushed forward and threw his arms around her, practically crushing her to his chest. 

"Tomoe," he whispered.

Huh. Why did her vision seem blurry all of a sudden? Bunny had his glasses on when she'd moved in, so it wasn't like...

Oh, right. Tears. 

Tomoe closed her eyes and returned the embrace with all the strength she could muster. She pressed her cheek into Kotetsu's shoulder, utterly failing to keep from crying with joy. Nothing she ever sensed as a spirit came close to matching the intensity of what she could feel with flesh and blood. The scent of Kotetsu's favorite cologne had no equal in the Haze, and it was the warmth of his body against hers, and not actually _having_ a body, that made her feel truly alive again.

They stayed like this for a good two or three minutes, with Tomoe clutching at the back of Kotetsu's vest and grinning as she heard him sniffling a bit. He eventually pulled away and handed her a handkerchief, which she gratefully took to wipe off her glasses and her face. She met his eyes, and was a bit startled to find that she didn't have to crane her head back like she had before. She'd known Bunny was about the same height as Kotetsu, if maybe only slightly taller, but experiencing it for herself was a different story. The temptation to close the distance between them with a kiss suddenly roared up inside her, but she stomped it down in favor of the less-threatening gesture of dabbing at the tears on Kotetsu's cheeks with his handkerchief. "It's good to see you again, Kotetsu," she said, folding the damp fabric when she was done and giving it back to him.

"Yeah, same," he replied. "Er, for a certain definition of 'see', anyway." He took the handkerchief from her and slid it back into his pocket. "But what are you doing here? How'd you even come back?"

Tomoe opened her mouth to speak, but it was her stomach that answered, grumbling loudly. Wow, she was absolutely _starving_. Had Bunny been so nervous about this whole thing that he'd forgotten to eat all day or something? "I don't suppose we could at least get some food first?" she asked a bit meekly. They had time for that, didn't they? "Needless to say, I haven't had anything to eat in ages."

Kotetsu chuckled. "I don't think Bunny has anything in his fridge, though. Hell, I don't even know if the guy knows how to cook." He put his hands on his hips and tapped a foot thoughtfully. "We could order in pizza, if you want. I'd take you out somewhere, but Bunny is Mr. Popular over here. You'd be mobbed within seconds and it would cause all sorts of problems."

"I understand. If we're getting pizza, you know to put anchovies on mine."

His mouth dropped open. He stared at her wide-eyed for a moment before slapping a hand to his face and laughing hysterically.

Tomoe tilted her head. "What's so funny?"

"You really _are_ Tomoe, aren't you?" Kotetsu said once he managed to calm himself down enough. "Bunny doesn't like anchovies at all. He nearly killed us when we tried to shove a pizza slice full of the stuff during an afterparty."

"Oh." She loved anchovies, but if Bunny wasn't a fan... "In that case, we can just get something else. I'm fine with plain cheese or whatever."

"Are you sure? I mean, it's obviously been a while since you've gotten to eat anything, so you should have something that you like."

She shook her head. "If Bunny was nice enough to let me use his body, the least I can do is avoid eating things he doesn't like." She smirked then, running her fingers lightly over her chest and eyeing Kotetsu from beneath lowered lashes. "After all, he's got _such_ a nice body, doesn't he? Wouldn't want to accidentally ruin it or anything."

Kotetsu went bright red. "Cripes, don't do that!" he stammered, averting his gaze. "That's just freaky."

She giggled at his discomfort. "What does Bunny usually like to eat, then?"

"...rabbit food?" At Tomoe's raised eyebrow, he elaborated: "Lots of vegetables. About the only time I ever see the guy eating meat is at charity dinners and things like that."

After some more deliberation, Kotetsu placed a phone order to his favorite pizza haunt for a half-vegetable, half-cheese pizza and a bottle of pop, requesting mayonnaise on the side, of course. When he was finished, he looked back at Tomoe, who had taken a seat on the recliner. "You know, it's not often that Bunny laughs or smiles the way you just did," he said. "It's weird seeing that on his face."

"I can believe it," she said. "But he's changed recently, hasn't he? You might be seeing it more often."

"You...know about that?"

She nodded. "I've been watching you two for a while, plus I talked with him a bit before doing this." She entwined her fingers together in her lap. "To think he hadn't moved on from his parents' death in twenty years..." A grim smile. "If you're not careful, you might end up like he was before."

"This is totally different from that," Kotetsu insisted, sounding offended.

"It's close enough that it concerns me."

Kotetsu just frowned at her before walking over to the windowsill to sit down, gazing at the cityscape as all traces of mirth vanished from him.

Tomoe got up to join him. "Talk to me, love," she said, keeping her voice gentle but firm. "This is not the time to be playing the 'I don't want to worry you' game, especially since the whole reason I stuck around for the past five years was _because_ I was worried. What's going on?"

There was a funereal silence.

"...you knew you were going to die that day, didn't you," he muttered tonelessly.

"I did."

"Then why did you tell me to leave?" he demanded, anguish in his gaze as he faced her again.

"You had a chance of saving the people who needed your help that day. But there was no chance of saving me...if there ever was."

"But you _died alone!"_

"Just because I was alone didn't mean I wasn't happy." She thought that over a moment. "Well, 'happy' might be too strong a word. 'Content' is probably more accurate — I was content knowing that you were going to live your life doing what you loved even after I was gone. Besides, I didn't want you to see me like that anymore. I know it hurt you."

"It still does," he whispered.

"I know that, too. That's why I'm here." Tomoe hugged Kotetsu again; he reciprocated. "But it's tiring to have to keep checking on you to make sure you're not self-destructing or anything like that, and it hurts me when I know I can't do anything but watch you fall. And I can't be possessing Bunny like this all the time, either, because that's not fair to him. Really, it's a miracle I even got this far to knock some sense into you."

A weak laugh. "Geez. What is it with me being surrounded by people who are determined to slap me around?

She pulled away and patted his cheek with her fingers. "You're just endearingly hopeless, that's why."

"I must be pretty hopeless now if you came back from the dead just to yell at me."

"I'm not yelling at you, just giving you some gentle advice. It took a lot of energy for me just to get here and stay here. I won't waste it on scolding you...at least not too much."

Kotetsu blinked in curiosity. "What _is_ it like being...you know...?"

"Oh, no, don't you try changing the subject on me now. We're talking about _you_ and it's going to stay that way."

"In that case, will you at least tell me if I can find you when I die?"

Tomoe glared a little. "Hey, I didn't come all this way to pretend at being alive just to talk about what it's like being dead!"

"I thought you said you weren't going to yell at me," Kotetsu said dryly.

"I'm not yelling — !" She inhaled and lowered her voice. "I was...just...talking loudly."

"That's called 'yelling'."

She smirked. "It's only yelling if I have to ask you to stop leaving your dirty laundry everywhere." She folded her arms. "Apparently your habits haven't changed much in that regard. Really, leaving your shirt in the kitchen sink? That's pretty low even for you."

"I — wait. You've seen that?"

"I'm a spirit, remember? I can go anywhere at any time."

Her tiger looked more like a deer in headlights at that moment, as though he were cataloging all the possibly incriminating things he'd done in the past five years that Tomoe might have seen. She took pity on him and steered the conversation back on course.

"Kaede seems to be doing well," she said.

Kotetsu snorted in disbelief. "That's amazing, considering how shitty a father I've been to her."

"To be sure, she's disappointed that you can't talk to her or see her as often as she'd like. But that's only because she loves you."

"I wouldn't blame her if she didn't."

Tomoe's heart broke. "You're doing the best you can with what you have, you know."

"It doesn't feel like anywhere near enough."

"It's not the most ideal of circumstances," she agreed. "But your mother is taking good care of her. Kaede smells content and stable, overall, so try not to worry too much."

He sighed. "That's good to..." He gawked at her. " _Smells_ content and stable?"

Oops. The words had been out of her mouth before she'd thought to check them. "Ah, yeah, that's one weird thing about being dead," Tomoe said with a shrug. "I can smell emotions and taste the relationships between people. I can't do it while I've got a physical body, though."

Kotetsu was clearly baffled, understandably so. "How can you smell and taste things if you don't have a body in the first place?"

"No idea. But it's the only way I can describe it. Or something like it, anyway. There's not a lot else to do, so you have time to pick up on certain things."

He cocked his head. "What do emotions and relationships taste like, anyway?"

Kotetsu was trying to change the topic again, but this time Tomoe let it slide, because it was going to lead back to what she wanted to talk to him about in the first place. "It's all different, depending on the situation. Happiness smells like oranges, or sometimes lemons or limes. Loneliness smells like rubbing alcohol." Her voice lowered. "It's rather common around your apartment."

He looked guilty again. She reached out and patted his arm before continuing.

"As for what relationships taste like, well...you and Nathan taste like a tomato, mayonnaise, and ham sandwich on rye bread."

The description seemed to cheer him up a bit. "That's...pretty detailed. And kind of delicious-sounding."

"It's because you have a really good friendship with him — and with Antonio, too. You three are really good friends."

Kotetsu scratched the back of his neck. "Heh, yeah, I guess we are." He brightened and leaned forward excitedly. "Hey, what do Bunny and me taste like?"

Tomoe glanced away and tapped a finger to her lips, as though thinking deeply about the question. In reality she was trying to hide the smile that was threatening to break out on her face. "Well, first off, you two are co-workers, so the main taste is some sort of soup — I think it's cream of mushroom. But you've become closer than just co-workers too, so recently there's been some fresh bread in there, indicating a friendship."

"I see." He laughed. "That also sounds pretty good."

"And then there's some cinnamon sprinkled in there."

"Cinnamon?" A corner of his mouth turned downwards, disappointed. "That makes the entire thing less appetizing now."

Tomoe hummed. "Cinnamon's weird. It's not really mixed in with the main taste of the relationship — it's more like something you notice on the side. It doesn't coordinate with any relationship taste except the ones between blood relatives, which taste like sweets and desserts. But you shouldn't ever be finding cinnamon in those anyway."

"Huh? Why not?" 

She turned back towards him, not bothering to hide her smile anymore. "Because the presence of cinnamon indicates romantic interest."

Kotetsu's reaction was as awe-inspiring as watching a time-lapse photograph of a sunrise, the significance of Tomoe's words dawning impressively on his features. "Y-you can't be serious," he sputtered. "You're just making that up, right?"

"I wouldn't make up something as strange as that," she replied, still smiling. "If I were going to choose a taste for love, it'd be something obvious like chocolate."

For a few moments Kotetsu just stared out the window again, cheeks flushed. He hunched his shoulders a little and gave her an adorably shy glance. "Does...does Bunny know that I — "

"I haven't said anything to him about it." Tomoe decided not to point out that she'd never said that the cinnamon taste was only on Kotetsu's side of their relationship. She had debated on this subject before, and ultimately decided to keep silent on the topic of their mutual attraction. It was true that telling them about it might encourage the two of them to seek each other out sooner, but she felt as though she should protect their privacy on this. Besides, she was sure that if she teased Kotetsu enough about his own crush, he'd go and do something about it. "This should be something you tell him on your own time. I'm just letting you know that I happen to know about it. And also that maybe you should stop being in denial over it."

"I'm not in — !" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you jealous?"

"...I am, a little," she admitted. "But really, I like Bunny a lot, myself, and I think you two would be good for each other. I know I can't return to this world the way I was before, so being able to approve of your next love is just fine by me."

Kotetsu didn't seem completely reassured. "S-sorry, Tomoe..."

"There's nothing to apologize for, my silly tiger." She waved a hand. "I'm glad for it, really. You're not suited for being alone, so in my opinion something like this was way overdue." She started snickering. "Especially because I totally called this a long time ago."

"Huh?"

"Didn't I tell you repeatedly that you batted for both teams? Don't think I've forgotten all the times you denied that." Tomoe sniffed. "You just said I read too much yaoi in my free time."

"But you _did!_ Sometimes you didn't feel like having sex because you were too busy reading the next volume of whatever it was you were reading!" He adopted a high-pitched voice and pressed his palms to his cheeks in some laughable impression of coquettishness. _"'Sorry, Kotetsu, I'm not in the mood, I'd rather look at fictional men getting it on than think about getting it on with the real man next to me!'_ Or how about: _'Sorry, Kotetsu, I'm busy drooling over men who are much better-looking than you are!'"_

Tomoe punched him in the shoulder. "I still fail to see how my reading habits have any bearing on the fact of your sexuality. Besides, I never said anything like that and you know it!"

"Ow!" Kotetsu winced and rubbed his arm where she'd hit him. "Well, that's what it always sounded like to me!"

She sidled up beside him to whisper coyly in his ear. "But I always made it up to you later, didn't I?"

Kotetsu's arms pinwheeled as he backed away from her. _"Stop doing that!"_ he groaned, his voice oddly thick. "I love you and all, but this is the weirdest thing ever. Seeing Bunny talk and act like you is...is..."

Tomoe raised an eyebrow. "Is...?"

A very long pause.

Kotetsu cleared his throat and looked away, tugging at the collar of his shirt. "Kinda hot," he mumbled.

Tomoe laughed, hard. "Of course it would take someone as pretty as Bunny to get you to realize how right I was all these years." She flipped back her hair in triumph...then blinked and promptly did it again. "Wow. He really has nice hair, doesn't he?" She continued flicking at it with her hand, amazed at how soft and bouncy it was. "That's not fair, it's way nicer than mine ever was. What does he use?"

"You are enjoying things at my expense way too much, you know," Kotetsu grumbled, still blushing.

"Can you blame me? This is the most entertainment I've had in a while." She caressed his face again. "After all, when I see you most of the time, you're not exactly happy."

Kotetsu sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry all this time."

"No one ever means to make anyone worry. But I know how you can make it up to me." Tomoe reached over to take his left hand in one of hers. She slipped off his wedding band with her other hand, then placed it in his palm and closed his fingers around it before looking him squarely in the eye. "Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, you hereby have my permission to pursue happiness with anyone you like, if for no other reason than to stop worrying me from now on."

He blinked. "What...?"

_"Promise _me, Kotetsu," Tomoe said, determined. She shook his hand for emphasis. "Promise me this, like you did when I told you to always be a Hero. This is the second promise to me that you need to keep. Always be a Hero...and always be happy."__

__His eyes flicked from her face...to their hands...and back again. He let out another sigh. "Well, if you went through all this trouble just to tell me that, I guess I can't say 'no', can I?" He grinned as he put his other hand on Tomoe's. "All right, Glasses Girl. I promise I'll always be a happy Hero."_ _

__Tomoe frowned at the old nickname. "You can't call me that when I don't — " She stopped in the middle of her usual retort, realizing that, yes, she _did_ actually have glasses at the moment. "When I'm not technically a girl right now," she amended._ _

__He snorted. "You look a lot like one, though."_ _

__"...I guess I can't argue with that."_ _

__Kotetsu laughed, and then he kissed her._ _

__Tomoe's eyes went wide, stunned. The contact was even more thrilling than she'd imagined, soft and warm and sweet. The electricity buzzing through her blood was suddenly grounded when she remembered that she'd promised Bunny that she wouldn't do anything bad while using his body._ _

__...but kissing wasn't _bad_ , was it? Or at least not _that_ bad. Bunny wasn't going to know unless Kotetsu told him, after all, and Tomoe was fairly sure that wasn't going to happen._ _

__So she leaned into the kiss, putting her arms around Kotetsu's neck. She wondered who he was thinking about at the moment: was it her, or Bunny? Then she decided that it didn't matter to her, because the taste of his lips against hers was worth more than anything she could savor in the Haze. This was the heaven she hadn't found in the afterlife; she was going to enjoy it for as long as she could._ _

__Which wasn't very long at all, unfortunately. Kotetsu's phone suddenly rang, startling the two of them — the pizza deliveryman was waiting in the lobby with their order. Reluctantly, Kotetsu got up to fetch their dinner, saying that he didn't need help with bringing it up and that Tomoe should just stay where she was. Left on her own for a bit, Tomoe went over to sit in the recliner and bask in the afterglow of their kiss like a giddy schoolgirl._ _

__They passed the rest of the night eating their pizza and watching a movie that Kotetsu streamed on Bunny's laptop via a Webflicks account, projecting it onto the blank wall across from them. There was a bit of a scuffle between the two when Kotetsu insisted on sitting on the floor and letting Tomoe have the recliner, while Tomoe wanted him to use the recliner so she could sit on his lap. They settled the matter by deciding to both sit on the floor, with Kotetsu propping himself up against the back wall and Tomoe sitting between his legs, using him as a cushion._ _

__"You realize I'm probably not going to be able to look Bunny in the face for a while after this," he told her during a lull in the movie._ _

__Tomoe giggled. "At least try," she said, nuzzling his neck. "Otherwise he's going to suspect that we did things together that are more questionable than they actually were."_ _

__"Fine," he sighed into her hair. "Then will you stop wiggling against me like that? It feels nice, but it's also...kind of awkward."_ _

__She snickered again, but complied._ _

__Tomoe's eyelids were drooping by the time the climax of the movie came around, a magical battle between the kid wizard heroine and her archnemesis. She had forgotten what it was like to be bone-tired, and she didn't relish being reminded of it. She yawned in the middle of a dramatic flare of spells._ _

__"Getting tired, are you?" Kotetsu asked._ _

__She nodded._ _

__"When do you have to, um...leave?"_ _

__"I can leave anytime, technically." She'd managed to figure out one method of doing it the last time she borrowed Bunny's body, and it had been almost as unpleasant as just getting kicked out. Fortunately, her spirit friend had clarified an easier way to go about it. "Though I'll probably end up leaving automatically if I fall asleep. Which I'm tired enough to do right now."_ _

__"Then let's get you to bed," Kotetsu said, getting to his feet to shut off the movie._ _

__They spent some time cleaning up the mess they'd made before heading to the bedroom. Kotetsu laughed when he saw the rabbit plush waiting cutely on the bed. "He kept it!" he crowed. "He actually _kept_ the thing! And everyone else said he was going to throw it away the moment he got home!"_ _

__Tomoe smiled as she took off her glasses and set them on the bedside table before crawling under the covers. She chose not to mention the little detail of Bunny clutching the toy every time she'd seen him sleeping. Nevertheless, she grabbed it for herself, curious about it, and discovered it was even squishier and cuddlier than it looked. No wonder Bunny liked it so much. "Did you buy it for him?"_ _

__"Technically, it was a birthday gift from all of us, because everyone pitched in a bit of pocket cash." He beamed. "But I picked it out."_ _

___Aha._ Tomoe hugged it to her chest with a contented sigh._ _

__"Are you sure you should be doing that?" Kotetsu asked, eyeing her strangely. "He might be weirded out if he wakes up and finds out he's cuddling that thing."_ _

__"Better that he wakes up cuddling this and not you," Tomoe replied. She directed another wicked grin at him. "Don't worry, though. I'm sure he'll replace this with you eventually."_ _

__Kotetsu rolled his eyes, but the sarcastic response was softened by the flush returning to his face. "Yeah, right. He _just_ started calling me by my name for once and you think he would be even the slightest bit inclined to...?"_ _

__"Weirder things have happened," she singsonged._ _

__"...weirder things, indeed." He sat on the bed next to her, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze. "Good night, Tomoe. I'll always love you."_ _

__She squeezed his hand right back. "I'll always love you too, Kotetsu." She smiled sleepily. "And don't worry about finding me when you die. _I'll_ be the one to find _you_."_ _

__And Tomoe closed her eyes and imagined herself simultaneously falling into the bed and floating up from Bunny's body, and just like that, she was back in the Haze, feeling wispy and thin from the energy she spent today on everything, from waiting around to using Bunny's body. There was no way she could make a visit to the Clear anytime within the next month, or even the next two months. She was going to have to make quite the sojourn to Sternbild's past to get back to normal — and given how winded she was, she might not ever make it back._ _

__But the risk was worth it. It was so worth it._ _

__The last thing she saw before fading into the deeper layers of the Haze was Kotetsu running a hand through Bunny's hair and muttering to himself, "He really _does_ have nice hair..."_ _


	8. there's your horizon to chase

"You know who these two are, everyone — Tiger and Barnaby, the world's first Heroic duo! Consisting of Barnaby Brooks Jr., the rookie with a stunning debut, and Wild Tiger, the seasoned veteran, they leapt to fame ten months ago when they took down the terrorist Jake Martinez, and they've only continued to shine from there!" From his desk, Mario motioned at Bunny and Kotetsu sitting in the guest chairs. "So tell us: what are your thoughts on your accomplishments thus far?"

"I think you made us out to be more impressive than we actually are," Bunny said humbly.

"Nonsense! I'm only stating the facts." Mario flashed a grin at the camera. "Right, everyone?"

The audience chorused in agreement.

"Well, the rest is history! Since then, the two have worked together to protect us from all sorts of danger..."

Tomoe was sitting on the empty bench next to Kotetsu, elated as Mario continued his litany of the pair's exploits. Close as she was to them, she was surrounded in a bouquet of merry scents: a citrus melange against a background of fresh grass, steeped delicately in the perfume of rose pride. The soupy taste between them had changed, too, from cream of mushroom to something heartier — some sort of vegetable stew with rice. And through it all, Tomoe savored the cinnamon, the strongest she'd ever noticed it with those two as either a taste or a smell. She could have hardly asked for a better sight to greet her when she finally returned after so long in the Haze. (It also didn't hurt that Kotetsu and Bunny looked pretty damn fine in their suits — and fedora, in Kotetsu's case.)

"This current season has just started," continued Mario, "but you two are off to an impressive start, holding on to your positions from last season."

"Bunny's amazing to have come this far in just a year," Kotetsu said. "Right, partner?" He leaned over to poke Bunny in the arm. "C'mon, don't be so modest."

"Please stop that," Bunny admonished him, but there was no telltale smoky annoyance accompanying his words. In fact, according to the brief spike in the tang of lemon and cinnamon, it seemed he actually _enjoyed_ that moment of brief contact, silly as it was. Yes, he — and Kotetsu — had certainly come quite far in a year of knowing each other.

 _...wait, did Kotetsu just call him "Bunny" on live television?_ Tomoe giggled. _I wonder if the name will catch on with the rest of the fans. Kaede would probably prefer something a little less girly, though._

"One thing that concerns me, however, is the fact that Jake's accomplice, Miss Kriem, has yet to make a statement on the incident." Mario laced his fingers together and leaned forward expectantly. "How do you feel about that?" 

Bunny mused for a bit. "Well, I was unable to discover Jake's reasons for killing my parents, or even any further details about the crime syndicate Ouroboros, but nevertheless, I'm relieved that this is all finally over." A graceful shrug. "Of course I would be more than willing to hear anything that she has to say, but I'm satisfied that Jake has been dealt with. He was a dangerous man in general."

"It was a pretty rough time for Bunny," Kotetsu chimed in, "but he managed to keep himself together." He grinned widely. "He's awesome like that."

"Oh, I couldn't have done it without your support, Tiger," Bunny said.

Kotetsu furrowed his brows at the younger man. "No way! It was all you."

"Don't be ridiculous. If it weren't for you — "

"Yeah, but _you've_ always been so — "

"Tiger, will you just let me finish what I'm trying to — "

"Ah, will you take a look at that!" Mario interrupted, flinging a dramatic arm out in their direction. "Surely you've never seen a more perfect pair than this!"

Tomoe joined in the audience's laughter as Kotetsu and even Bunny looked a little flustered at the attention drawn to their attempted one-upmanship of lavishing praise on the other.

"Have you two always gotten along this well?" asked Mario.

"Ah..." Kotetsu glanced over at Bunny. "Y-yeah. We've always been this close, haven't we, Bunny?"

Bunny nodded. "We hit it off right from the start."

"You two are such liars," Tomoe muttered with a snicker. She'd caught the acetone faintly wafting in from around Kotetsu — he clearly hadn't been comfortable about telling such a falsehood. It was likely that the higher-ups were insisting on maintaining the most pristine image they could of their superstar Heroes, and that involved things like covering up any indication that the two hadn't been best buddies the moment they met. But considering how well they were getting along now, Tomoe was fairly certain that not many people were going to know or care about that little detail.

She suddenly straightened to attention as she felt the energies of the Haze ripple through her.

Behind Bunny, the silhouettes of his parents' ghosts melted into view. Bright as the studio lights were, there was no mistaking their features now, even considering how their appearances had deteriorated from years in the Haze.

And if Tomoe wasn't imagining things, she thought they might be smiling at her. Or maybe they were just smiling at how things had turned out for their son in general. Or maybe it wasn't anything like that at all, and Tomoe was just projecting the happy ending she wanted so badly to believe in.

Whatever the case was, she acknowledged their presence with a nod of her head before leaning over to rest an elbow on the arm of Kotetsu's chair. As she continued to listen to the interview, she became more convinced by the minute that this magical thing she was witnessing between Kotetsu and Barnaby was _right_. A new sense of peace bubbled up inside her like a fresh spring in the desert, and the thought occurred to Tomoe that as fun as it was to watch the two of them getting along splendidly, she probably wouldn't need to visit the Clear as often as she used to.

After all, this was enough to go by.


End file.
